For two days we marched through high dry grass, (about ten feet), when a
clear night allowed an observation, and the meridian altitude of Capella
gave latitude 2 degrees 45 minutes 37 seconds. In this interminable sea
of prairie it was interesting to watch our progress south. On the
following day our guide lost the road; a large herd of elephants had
obscured it by trampling hundreds of paths in all directions. The wind
was strong from the north, and I proposed to clear the country to the
south by firing the prairies. There were numerous deep swamps in the
bottoms between the undulations, and upon arrival at one of these green
dells we fired the grass on the opposite side. In a few minutes it
roared before us, and we enjoyed the grand sight of the boundless
prairies blazing like infernal regions, and rapidly clearing a path
south. Flocks of buzzards and the beautiful varieties of flycatchers
thronged to the dense smoke to prey upon the innumerable insects that
endeavoured to escape from the approaching fire.
In about an hour we marched over the black and smoking ground, every now
and then meeting dead stumps of palm trees blazing; until we at length
reached another swamp. There the fire had terminated in its course
south, being stopped by the high green reeds, and it was raging to the
east and west.
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